Blade and Soul US website has been updated
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I'll admit I'm leaning a little more on the concerned side myself. From hearing what a lot of the streamers have said, this game is already REALLY different from most other Korean games—more thought out tutorials and very low on the grinding aspects. I'd hate to think they'd want to further dumb it down. I'm personally excited for some difficulty that's more skill involved and not arbitrary (a la Guild Wars 2).

By "westernize" they probably mean things like work on class balance, improve drop rates (which in many Asian MMO's tend to be very low), make sure that you can quest your way to the level cap and not be forced to grind out levels, etc, rather than changing core gameplay mechanics or anything else. So I wouldn't be overly worried about things, at least until they go into details.

I don't understand by 'improving drop rate'. Do NCsoft think that Western players would tend to hate grinding/hunting for items compared to Korean players? Why would they improve drop rate? I would like the drop rate as it is.): More sense of accomplishment.. I don't want purple drops everywhere qq

Whoa what really srs? oh snap~ also I dont think they are gonna make GODLIKE crazy changes tbh
imo unlike Tera, I honestly cant picture how Blade and soul would be fully westernized, given the eastern image of the game.

I just hope we get all of KRs outfits >_>

Yep here's their post

Quote

Respecting the Vision
Our commitment to remain true to the artistic style of Blade & Soul®
This is an exciting time for us as we can now use our official website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page to share information and provide status updates on the development of Blade & Soul® for Western audiences. We will use these platforms as a way to not only distribute official assets and information, but to directly address community concerns. With that in mind, we wanted to take a moment to shed some light on rumors that NCSOFT® West is censoring the content of Blade & Soul.

As you know, Blade & Soul features a rich, beautiful world inspired by the artistic style of Hyung-Tae Kim, an internationally renowned artist we consider ourselves fortunate to be working with. Hyung-Tae Kim brings with him a very recognizable and risqué anime style that, combined with the game's deep storyline and modern martial arts style combat, delivers a game experience like no other.

Due to ESRB guidelines, however, our marketing material must abide by a different set of considerations than the final product. This is why Blade & Soul's rating is listed as "pending." It is NCSOFT West's intention to accurately depict the game in its original, unaltered form, with only minor adjustments for gameplay considerations.

In short: We are not planning to censor or alter the actual in-game content you have come to expect from an artist such as Hyung-Tae Kim and a studio such as Team Bloodlust. Rest assured that we love Blade & Soul as much as you do, and any modifications to the marketing material are not indicative of our plans for the final content.

We appreciate your concern, and we hope that we've helped set your minds at ease. We're very excited about bringing Blade & Soul to Western audiences, and we intend to do our best to deliver the game you want to play.

-- Blade & Soul Team, NCSOFT West

I personally think their comment about gameplay not being fun and balanced has to do with all classes being equal so there's no fotm

The US has seen this a lot with games like WoW where one class is more popular than another, maybe they're making changes so the classes appeal more to western players , after all they're going to be the ones playing the game. If they don't like the Asian style they won't be coming back

I don't think the essence of Blade and Soul is going to be altered

I think people here are on the forum are unique in that we're not the typcial gamer , we look for the unaltered pure version, unfortunately that doesn't work well with the majority and there aren't enough of us to fill up all the servers.

For example, cute things in Japan are weird to lots of people overseas, it's just the unfortunate truth

"Westernizing" is a new term meaning making the game as baby as possible. If you look at the drop of difficulty in games in the west, everything is practically handed to you. They are going to cater to the casual market because Hardcore gamers are the minority in the west. The very loud and obnoxious minority that makes them not wan t to cater to the hardcore.

This is a real hype killer. Expect badge gear and stupid crap like that.

Gameplay wise I don't think they will change that see how free movement is has become more common but people have been asking for more depth which B&S has from the parry system and how the classes work.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”- Sun Tzu, The Art of War'Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Damage~? Tuning damage~? I doubt that, if anything what first comes to mind that would need to be addressed as far as coming from Korea over here to NA is exp and leveling~
Damage didn't pop into my mind at all, I know full well they're tweaking it to make it seem less like a grind fest for our audiences~ Also, they have to shape the game in the sense that we're LEARNING about all these Asian folklores, stories, and history in the game because most don't know them, whereas the Korean audience already does. So, I can see some of the quests taking a different shape maybe.

My only disappointment is that we waited all this time for this shred of news....true, some news is better than no news, but when I read
'In the meantime, our goal is to build excitement for Blade & Soul, by introducing Western audiences to the game's beautiful graphics, compelling story and innovative gameplay.'

I'm thinking...'hmmm, I guess 4-5 years of following development, seeing it launch in Korea and so forth, wasn't enough hype. What other hype can we possibly see?'

So...are they going to release some special trailers~? oh oh~! more screenshots~? Nah, wallpapers~!! I'm so so excited~!
*end sarcasm here*

Honestly, the only positive thing I took from this bit of 'news' was 'Thanks for bearing with us, and stay tuned!'
Because everything else has either been said before, need not have been said, or just isn't really news at all and I can say that I am most certainly bearing with them~ =/
Till next time~

For the sake of organization and officialness let's continue the conversation here

Thank you for all the comments and to Mizuki for the awesome news.

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